Great info and insight on the topic. Thank you for sharing. I live in the Northland, live in Gladstone currently and I am not for the stadium in NKC, despite it would be super easy to get to for me. I want it downtown, because I love downtown nd would love to go to a baseball game there. Plus the EV site would help, IMO, trigger a lot of development on the East side of the downtown loop, spilling over to the West a little and the South, and has the best chance to create more of a seamless neighborhood feel into the 18th & Vine area from downtown and Crossroads. It will spur other investors to the area for sure. Also It would require highway improvements and better traffic patterns for the interstate mess that is the East Loop. Given all that I'm big on it going downtown and into EV.Chris Stritzel wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 4:09 pmHappy to explain. Simply, City officials continue to prove, like they did today, that they want the Royals to remain within the City and will work to keep them here. Meanwhile, County Officials, in particular Mr. Frank White, put out a letter that I take as "shame revenge" as the game of finger pointing continues. While the silliness happens at the County Level, City officials are on the job and will continue to be that way.aknowledgeableperson wrote: ↑Thu Aug 03, 2023 1:05 amHow do you figure? From day 1 of a proposed downtown move there was always the feeling that county leadership wasn't sold on the idea. If Clay County gets a stadium the fault lies with the Royals, or with Clay County having a better proposal. The team was always going to fight a strong headwind to move from TSC no matter what. To a degree I think many JaCo voters see a rejection of them by the team after over 40 years of support by the county. And given the failure of the team these past two seasons many may believe the team owners are more interested in the development side of the proposal instead of putting a winning team on the field.Chris Stritzel wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2023 4:04 pm If the Royals choose Clay County over the East Village, then this will be a loss that can be directly attributed to Frank White and County Leadership.
I can't say whether or not voters will see the record of the Royals as being a deciding factor in how they vote, especially since the Chiefs are linked to the vote. It's also important to note that the Royals last won a World Series 8 years ago and while that seems like an eternity, remember it took the Cubs 108 years to win another World Series. Teams go through good and bad times, the Royals are no different. I believe that the real state investment aspect of this will help them generate more revenue in the long-term that can go towards better players and coaching staff. Additionally, a Stadium located in Downtown with easy access to many more fans than the suburban stadium will yield a higher attendance even if the team plays poorly. When tickets are cheap, and the stadium is easy to get to, people will go for the fun of it.
I don't disagree with you there. Preferably, even the East Village doesn't get developed with high-rises and instead you create an intimate feel that can be a bridge to the redevelopment of Paseo West. Difference between NKC and East Village is the infrastructure. NKC couldn't handle it without a significant overhaul and public investment that, like others have pointed out, would make Clay County and NKC residents's eyes water at the costs.As a side note the Clay County site has one big advantage over the EV site - the amount of land available to develop, by the team and others. You may not get the taller buildings in Clay County but you can create more of a mixed use community that would have more of a neighborhood feeling to it than downtown.
And to respond to another post about Jackson County/City voters seeing the renewal of the tax as a handout to billionaires, that may be true but a minority of voters likely believe that to be the case. If this was just a vote for the City of KC, I believe the 3.8 tax would be easily renewed. With the entire county needing to vote on it, it will easily pass. Even those who would see this as a "handout" understand that it would be a punch in the gut to lose out on these investments in the long-term. Few will admit that publicly, but there are a few I know who are very vocally against incentives for projects who are supportive of the renewal of the tax for this purpose.
I agree NKC is more smoke than anything else. However I wonder how much money NKC proper has to give to the project. The costs along to those in Clay county would be a lot and I'm sure they will kick in a little extra than we pay today. But I'm curious how much casino money NKC has and gets that will allow for them to invest more into the project for the returns to the city proper via increased sales tax, hotel taxes, property taxes, etc.
